911 is 9-1-1
by TheDeep
Summary: It's September 11th, 2013 in New York and the CSI team is about to face one of their more mentally challenging cases. What happens when the emergency number 9-1-1 shows up in blood on the glass windows in the lab on this day...12 years after that fateful Tuesday in 2001? My "2013 9/11" tribute...if you'd like to call it such a thing...
1. Chapter 1: 12 Years Later

**Hey y'all! I assume all of you CSI: New York fans at least know a little bit about 9/11, so I won't spend too much time explaining myself, but I felt this story was almost necessary. This is my 9/11 tribute for 2013. I guess I just might try to make one every year, but you'll notice I'll at least mention it as I'm not sure exactly why…but I hold 9/11 as a very personal event that I must recognize every single year. To not do it seems…just simply not right. Anyways, this is my 9/11 tribute story, if you will.**

**~ Chapter One: 12 Years Later ~**

Mac sighed as he quickly reviewed the test results he had. It was 2 in the morning…and then it hit him…

He looked first to the clock, which dauntingly read 2:07 AM, and then out to the city. Today was a Wednesday, a very important one at that.

_9/11…I can't believe it's been 12 years…_

He could still remember standing in the precinct yelling Claire's name in to his phone, praying she would be ok and then realizing the entire nation was under attack.

Then he'd spent the next few days clinging to a hope he knew deep down was pointless. Claire was _dead_. One day he had to accept that. Finally, 12 years later, he had fully come to terms with it. He'd even found a way to move on, if you could move on from such an event. He'd never forget her…but he'd accepted that he couldn't keep living in the past. Getting shot had been a real eye-opener on that kind of thing.

He sighed and shook his head, bringing himself fully back to the present and quickly jotted down his signature on the test results and the date beside that. _9/11/13_.

He then stood and shut off the lights in his office after he'd grabbed his jacket. Hopefully he'd be able to force at least a few hours' sleep before another call would bring him back to the lab.

. . . . . . .

Jo stepped off the elevator with a sigh. It had been 12 years ago…yes, it had been that long. For some reason, 12 years sounded like a pretty small amount of time when it came to September 11th, 2001. Any other time, she often found it to be a decently long amount of time.

As she walked through the lab, towards her office, she caught a few of the lab techs shoot nervous glances at her and noticed how they talked in lowered voices. Was she missing something here?

No sooner had she set her things down, she looked up to see that Adam had made his way out of the crowd of lab techs and was sprinting towards her.

Now she was certain. Something was wrong, and that sent her mind racing back to 12 years ago, but she managed to stay grounded in 2013.

"Adam, what's going on?" Jo asked, stepping around her desk to meet the rushing lab tech at the door to her and Lindsay's shared office space.

"9-1-1!" Adam exclaimed breathlessly. It looked like he'd just sprinted from the ground floor all the way up to the 35th of the lab.

"What do you mean? That's the emergency number," Jo said, getting a bit nervous at the mention of such a number. Today was 9/11. Al Qaeda had specifically chosen 9/11 because if you formatted it out like a phone number, 9-1-1 was the emergency number.

"9/11!" Adam exclaimed again. "It's…just follow me!" he said, clearly giving up on trying to explain it to her.

Jo nodded and took off after him and then the two of them twisted their way through the crowd of lab techs.

"Oh my God!" Jo exclaimed, stopping dead in her tracks, a hand flying to cover her mouth in pure shock.

Adam shot a glance at her before they both looked back to the red numbers streaked on the glass. Jo blinked as if trying to convince herself it was just red marker, but she knew it wasn't. Adam finally shifted nervously on his feet once more.

"I'll run a quick test and let you know asap," he said.

Jo nodded wordlessly. "I'll call the rest of the team and I'll try to get ahold of Mac. He was here the latest, so he might've seen something," she said.

Adam nodded and quickly dashed back to the lab as Jo stared down the numbers painted on the glass. 9-1-1.

This was something she prayed she would never have to encounter. This was big…it being 9/11 and all. Someone was really bold playing around like this and someone was clearly trying to send a message.

The numbers were written in blood.

Jo forced herself to turn to the lab techs.

"Back to work, carry on as usual. I'll handle this as will the rest of us and I'll try to get ahold of Detective Taylor," she said in as calm a voice as she could muster.

All the lab techs nodded and quickly dispersed out to their stations, exchanging nervous glances. Whether their nervous looks were associated with how Mac was going to take this whole thing or the meaning of the numbers painted on the windows…Jo couldn't be sure.

She pulled out her phone and turned back to the numbers, this time shooting a glance out at the city.

It was 9:58 AM.

The rest of the team would be on their way here…and Mac already said he was going to be late after an extremely late night at the office last night. This would probably get them all racing right in though…This was something big…something Jo wished she'd never, ever had to deal to with, but now she had no choice. She had to find out what this was about.


	2. Chapter 2: Voicemails and Helpers

**~ Chapter Two: Voicemails and Helpers ~**

"_Hey, you've reached Mac…sorry I didn't answer your call. Leave me a message and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can."_

Jo frowned. It was almost hilarious how awkward getting Mac's voicemail was…but it wasn't funny today. Why hadn't he answered? It was very possible he wasn't up yet, but she knew him. He probably was up at least half an hour ago, if not earlier than that. Mostly due to Insomnia. You saw so many things on this job that having Insomnia was not a very uncommon thing to have after working the job for so long.

There were several other reasons she could list to as why he hadn't answered, but none of them soothed her worry and anxiety.

_9/11…9-1-1…What in the world is going on?_ She kept asking herself the same question over and over as she paced in the lab, chewing at her lip.

"Jo!" Adam yelled, running towards her with a tablet in his hand. Jo looked up and stopped pacing. She didn't like the nervous look on the lab tech's face. She didn't like much of anything at the moment…

"What'd you get? Did you get a match in CODIS?" Jo asked.

Adam nodded and took a deep breath before he handed over the tablet to her. "The problem is…it was a match to our employee database," he said.

Jo's anxiety spiked a little more than she would have liked it too. Her fingers worked against the smooth surface of the tablet nervously and she hesitated to look at the results she knew would be on the screen. "Who did you get a match to?" she asked, looking Adam in the eyes, searching desperately for any kind of calming information or thing.

Adam shifted nervously on his feet and he bit his lip just slightly before he let out a bit of a sigh. "Mac."

. . . . . . . . .

"_Look, I don't exactly care that it's your day off! This is an all hands on deck kind of thing, alright? We've got the safety of thousands of people that could be hanging in the balance as we speak. Just get your ass in here!"_ Don said with a frustrated growl before he slammed the "end call" button on the screen of his phone and set the phone down roughly on his desk. He raked a hand over his face.

"What the hell is going on here?" he mumbled, trying to wrap his head around this whole thing.

"_No, I gotta help them!" the young man said, turning back away from him and turning towards the World Trade Center…or what was left of it, anyways._

"_Look, they're all gone!" Don said, a hand on his shoulder. "They're all gone!" he repeated, shaking his head. Dust covered his uniform and his entire body._

_The man stared back at him and Don knew he was trying to process and understand what Don had just told him. He looked down the street for a moment, looking almost like he was going to ignore what Don had said before he looked back to Don._

"_What's your name?" Don asked._

"_Messer. Danny Messer," the man said._

_Don nodded. "She needs help. Can you help me with her?" he asked._

_Messer nodded and they both walked back over to the woman Flack had left kneeled on the dust covered road and they helped her to her feet again; together they held her on her feet._

That was only 12 years ago? It just seemed pretty unreal to him.

"Flack!"

Flack frowned just slightly for a moment at the voice and his gaze searched out whoever the voice belonged to. His eyes rested on a brown-haired woman he recognized instantly.

"Stella! What are you doing up here? I thought you were in New Orleans?" Flack asked as he ran over, meeting her halfway through the precinct.

"I got a call from Lindsay and Detective Danville," Stella said. Flack was a bit confused by the extremely concerned look in her eyes. "Have you reached Mac yet?" she asked.

Flack shook his head. "No, I left him a voicemail about…" he paused and checked his watch, "an hour ago."

"Damn it," Stella muttered and she chewed at her lip.

Don's blue eyes instantly filled with concern. "Why? Am I missing something? Is he ok?" he asked, putting a hand on Stella's arm as she started to look a bit unsteady on her feet.

"Lindsay said they found a match in CODIS to who that blood in the lab belonged to," Stella began as Flack guided her to a seat at his desk.

Flack snatched a chair from nearby. "Ok…catch me up…I've been making phone calls all morning…who was it a match to?" he asked, trying to keep his voice calm and steady without much success. He was getting more nervous as Stella told him more.

"Lindsay said it was a match to NYPD's employee database…and you know…all of us CSIs have to have our DNA and prints in the system to check for accidental cross-contamination and such…" Stella continued, a hand to her head as she had her own battle with keeping her voice steady.

Flack nodded. "Stella…just tell me who it was a match to…" he said, almost to the point of pleading with her. He just couldn't handle this suspense of this.

Stella finally looked up to lock her gaze with his and Flack felt his breath catch in his throat as he saw the tears in her eyes. "Flack…Adam got a match to Mac's DNA profile…it's Mac's blood…"

**A/N: I just have to note that little section…if any of you remember…that's from 8x01, "Indelible" and I do apologize if any of that is wrong or off from the actual episode. I haven't sat down and watched that one, so it's my own fault if I quoted it wrong. Hope you guys can forgive me on that one if I messed up. I was actually a bit nervous about sharing this story…since when 9/11 happened I was way too young to know exactly what was going on and remember what happened, so I'm going on what I know! Thanks to you guys for reading though, it means so much to me! -TheDeep**


	3. Chapter 3: Stay Calm!

**~ Chapter Three: "Stay Calm!" ~**

"What do you think this means?"

"Is it true that there's a detective missing?"

"Is this going to be another 9/11?"

Reporters gathered by the numbers, anxious to have stories for their viewers. Sinclair, Flack, Stella, Jo, and the mayor stood ready to answer the questions to the best of their ability.

"Quiet down, please! We're going to do our best to answer your questions, but I want to make something very clear," the mayor was the first to speak and the gathered crowd settled down, an almost eerie silence collecting amongst the group.

The tension and fear was palpable in the air.

"There is no reason to panic. We made it through something like this 12 years ago. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. We will make it through this this time as well!" the mayor said. He turned to the NYPD personnel gathered with him. "Detectives Flack, Danville, and Bonasera will be better able to answer your questions on what's going on," he added with a nod to the three detectives. Flack nodded back and looked to Sinclair for authorization to take the lead. When Sinclair nodded, Flack, Jo, and Stella stepped forward.

"You asked if it was true that there is a detective missing," Flack began. Somehow he managed to keep his voice strong, level, and calm. "It's true. Detective Mac Taylor is the missing detective. By now all of you know about '9-1-1' being painted on the windows of the New York Crime Lab. DNA testing of that blood confirms our fears. It is indeed Detective Taylor's blood."

Jo took over at this point. "Yes, we're worried about him. No, we do not see this as a reason to panic," she said.

The reporters listened as the three detectives took the information in turns, telling the assembled crowd and reporters everything they knew. It wasn't often that they disclosed so much information on an open case up front like this.

But this was the entire city's safety at stake. They had no choice but to present everything up front to ensure everyone knew what was going on and knew what they should do to keep safe.

"If you've got any information, no matter how big or small, on why this is happening or what this is supposed to mean…we need to know. So…it is the request of the entire department that you call in with anything you know or might've heard…"

Stella stared down at her hands, folded and clasped in front of her as Flack rattled off the last part of their very thrown-together-on-the-spot speech. She couldn't help but wish that she and Mac left on a little bit of better terms.

Now…faced with this…she couldn't be certain she would ever be able to apologize to him. She wouldn't be able to live with any of this if she couldn't at least talk to him one more time. He was the one person she wished was here more than anyone. He had loads of experience with 9/11, as did the rest of the team…but she didn't know anyone else that would be better able to direct them on this case than Mac. Not to mention he had experienced time in the Service as a Marine. Maybe the Armed Forces could better help them with the situation as a whole…and she already knew the mayor had put a watch on the New York Airspace, as they'd done 12 years ago…but no planes had been marked suspicious for activity so far.

For the moment it was just the shock and the fear and the fact that Mac was literally a MIA.

She didn't like that. She hated it. Not knowing if he was alright, dead or alive, literally was killing her. It ate at her from the inside out and she was entirely relieved when Sinclair and the mayor dismissed all three of them and they were allowed to leave the pressure of the spotlight. As she walked with Flack and Detective Danville, Danville was gripping the cross she wore around her neck and Flack simply looked shocked and as grateful as her to not have to face the questions.

The one question all of them were unable to answer and didn't want to answer yet was,

"Is this an attack on the nation? Is Detective Taylor alive?"

Ok…that was two questions. The answer to both of them very well may be "yes." Stella just didn't want to think like that, couldn't afford to think like that. None of them could.

. . . . . . . . .

"Detective Taylor!" The voice was filled with concern.

"I'm fine," Mac said, taking his hand away from the cut that ran down his left upper arm.

The medic that was with him kneeled down beside him as he sat down, back against the wall. He didn't protest when Ken, as Mac had gotten to know the 37 year old medic, looked over the cut, grabbing a few things from his pockets and kit which he still had.

"It's not deep," Ken told him as he worked, not looking up to meet Mac's gaze with his own.

"Just enough to make everyone worried about what the hell's going on," Mac said through gritted teeth. He didn't care that it wasn't deep, it still stung and hurt. But he'd been through worse. He'd live. He'd be fine.

Ken nodded in agreement. "So…is it true? They really painted 9-1-1?" he asked.

Mac nodded, involuntarily thinking about that Tuesday when he'd gotten off the bus and let Claire go ahead to the WTC. This was almost as bad as crashing the Towers and the Pentagon. There would be panic in the city…they'd all be on high alert.

Ken sighed and shook his head. "Really…what is their point?"

Mac sighed and looked over at Ken before looking back to the locked door of the small, dark room. "I don't know. I really don't know."

In all honesty…he was almost scared to know. He almost didn't want to know that answer.


	4. Chapter 4: The Note

**Sorry I kept you waiting so long on this. This week's really been kicking my butt and therefore I just never got around to writing this.**

**. . . . . . . . . .**

_I hate to be so brief, but I didn't have a lot of time to explain when writing this. First off, I'm fine! I just needed you to know that much, but it might not be true for much longer if neither me or you guys can figure out what's going on. I know they're talking about just trying to scare everyone, use us as an example. I can't explain "us" it would take me too long and I don't have the luxury of time._

_All I know is we're somewhere that's not exactly highly-populated. The only reason they would've taken us here is if they knew they wouldn't get disturbed doing their work. But I've got something more important to tell you – You guys need to hightail it out of the lab and the precinct! They said something about a bomb, so get out now! We'll find some way out of here on our own. Promise._

_I hope I'll get the chance to see you all pretty soon,_

_-MAC_

"GO, LET'S GO, LET'S GO!" Flack yelled across the precinct, getting the last few officers in the precinct out the door before running out right on their heels.

Stella, Jo, Danny, Adam, Sid, Sheldon, and Lindsay stood waiting for him when he finally made it to their temporary set up. They still needed to work on this case, no matter if they were in the lab or not.

"Anything new?" he asked, still trying to catch his breath after the scare and the yelling to get everyone safely out of the 12th Street Precinct.

Stella shook her head. "But we've at least determined it's indeed Mac's writing. And he wasn't forced to write this either. His style is more urgent than forced and I would've expected him to write some kind of code if he was forced to write it," she responded. She could still recognize Mac's slightly unorganized and messy handwriting solely on sight. It wasn't that he was a bad writer, it was just his handwriting…and Stella had to cut herself off there before she cried. There was too many memories of late nights in the lab working side by side with Mac that they all threatened to overwhelm her at the moment.

"But he's ok. That's what we need to focus on," Danny said, managing to keep his voice steady.

Jo and the others nodded as Stella and Don simply looked over at Danny.

Don sighed. "Any idea on why he used 'we'?" he asked.

Danny shook his head, but Lindsay answered, "No. He didn't give us any hints on that one."

Stella nodded. "He didn't have the time," she said. Her voice was quiet. She was scared. Had he been caught leaving this note for them or caught writing it? If so, what'd they do to him? Was he really ok? She knew Mac Taylor was a very good liar at times. She had seen his skill several times, but this time she couldn't tell if he was lying.

She just wanted him to be ok. If it was the last wish she ever had granted in her whole life, she wanted him to be ok.

To come back to her and tell her that he was fine and that she had worried too much and that she didn't have to apologize for the way they'd left, the way they'd fought.

She wanted that stubborn Mac Taylor back. The Mac Taylor she knew would have the words she needed to hear already prepared when he came back to them all.

**. . . . . . . . .**

**So, sorry this one is so short guys, but as I said, this week's been pretty rough, so I'm gonna leave off here. I'll try my best not to keep you hanging like this for too long though! Promise!**


	5. Chapter 5: Good To Have You Back

**Sorry this took so long! Had another rough week and now watching several episodes of CSI: NY, new ideas are starting to cook around and fiddle with my mind, but this needed to be done first being that it was my top priority.**

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

Mac looked over his shoulder. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. How you holdin' up, Detective?" Ken responded.

Mac nodded. "I'm fine. We need to get on the move and find my team," he said, pulling out the cellphone he'd lifted on their way out. They'd gotten lucky and Mac wouldn't refuse an opportunity to reconnect with his team.

Ken nodded. "And I want you to at least get checked out, ok?"

Mac flashed a partial smile as the two of them slipped silently behind the cover of a large SUV parked in the alley where they now stood.

Ken watched the detective as he punched in a number on the phone. "Calling you team?" he asked.

Mac nodded as he heard the ring from the phone that he now held to his ear. He was looking up and down the alley. Getting caught now would mean certain death, so Mac was taking extra precautions.

"_This is Detective Danville."_

The sounds of the city were mixed in the background along with the sounds of familiar voices discussing plans in worried tones and short sentences.

"_Jo, it's Mac,"_ Mac said, motioning to Ken for the medic to follow him before the two slinked down the alley in the shadows.

"_Oh my God! Mac? Really? Where are you? Are you ok? What the hell happened to you?"_ Jo blurted out all the questions she'd been asking herself in one sloppy "sentence."

"_Yeah, yeah, I'm fine! I need you to calm down, ok? Where are you guys?"_ Mac asked.

"_We're out of the lab. We cleared out just like you told us…and we're that one coffee place we always meet at after a long shift. We had to set up somewhere and they were willing to let us come in and work,"_ Jo told him.

Mac nodded and looked out on the street that him and Ken had come to now that they were at the end of the alley. _"Alright, Ken and I are about 10 minutes from there."_

"_Ken? Who's Ken?"_

Mac and Ken started down the street cautiously. They received a few strange looks and Mac thought he caught a few mutterings about what had happened at the lab earlier. _"He's a paramedic. He was held hostage with me and we pulled off a freakin' miracle by escaping, if you ask me. These guys weren't professionals, but they still knew how to keep an eye on the two of us."_

Jo nodded. _"So I can assume we'll see you soon?"_

"_Yeah. We'll be there soon. Promise."_

**. . . . . . . . . .**

"Guys!" Jo exclaimed, racing over to the team.

The team dropped whatever conversation they were holding and Don was the first to catch Jo's relieved expression.

"What happened? What'd you find out?" he asked, stepping towards Jo and laying a hand on her arm.

"I just got a call from Mac. He's in Manhattan and he said he's about 10 minutes out," Jo reported.

"He escaped?" Stella asked, looking just as relieved and shocked as Jo felt.

Jo nodded. "Him and this paramedic; Mac said him and Ken were held hostage and managed to get away from the sons of bitches that did this."

Stella and the others nodded. "So he's on his way here with that Ken guy?"

Jo nodded again. "Yeah. They should be here shortly."

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

"Mac!" Jo exclaimed as she raced over to Mac and threw her arms around him in a hug.

"Jo! Hey!" Mac exclaimed, obviously taken by surprise.

Jo stepped back and saw Mac smiling. "Good to know you're alright and have you back."

Mac nodded. "One hell of a morning I had," he admitted. He stepped aside to allow Ken to step up beside him. "This is Ken Walsh. He's a paramedic and he helped me get away."

Ken punched the detective lightly on his arm. "More like we got away together," he corrected with a slight smile.

"Mac!"

Mac looked up and his gaze searched out that familiar voice. He knew that voice so well, even now.

"Stella!" he exclaimed when he saw the brown-haired CSI racing forwards to hug him. Mac was grinning as she came up to him and they hugged each other.

"What are you doing here? I didn't miss something, did I?" he asked, eyes bright as they stepped back and Mac looked at her.

"I came as soon as I heard about what happened at the lab this morning. Seems like you _still_ need me to watch your ass for you sometimes!" she responded with a grin.

Mac smirked. "That's not a compliment, Detective Bonasera!"

Stella grinned. "Yeah, I know that, smartass."

Jo smiled. "Well, it's good to have you back, but we need to figure out who the hell did this, if none of you mind."

Mac, Ken, and Stella looked over at her, but Mac spoke for all three of them. "Not at all. Let's find these sons of bitches."

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

**Gosh, it's been a long time since my last update of this story, so I knew I owed it to you guys! Hope I pleased! :P Thanks for the reads and reviews, all of you! It means so much!**


	6. Chapter 6: We're Only Human

**First of all, SORRY! I know… I'm horrible, I'm horrible… And this chapter is way, horribly long overdue. And I got a little help with this chapter from last night's episode of Chicago Fire. ;)**

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

"What do you two know?" Flack asked. Ken worked on Mac's arm with ease now that they were out of the overhanging threat of being killed.

"I was on my way home after shift at the fire house when they jumped me," Ken put in. Mac nodded. He'd heard the story from Ken already.

"And I was down in the garage," he said. He frowned. "Did security get anything on the footage from down there around two in the morning?"

"System was down and it was a switch out on the shifts. They didn't notice until I brought it up to them," Flack said.

Mac growled something under his breath. Flack thought it sounded something like, "And they still want to cut the damn budgets?"

Flack couldn't blame him. The budget cuts had put an extra weight on not only Mac's shoulders, but pretty much the rest of them as well.

"Do you know anything that can help us find them?" he continued as Ken finished his final work on Mac's arm, looking satisfied that he didn't need to worry about the detective anymore.

Mac was frowning and Ken leaned against the table beside him. Both the paramedic and the detective murmured a quick thanks to one of the waiters of the coffee shop as she offered them both coffees, which both men accepted.

Mac's shoulders finally slumped after a moment and he shook his head. "Nothing… When we went back to the lab this morning, I knew the techs on duty had no reason to be on the side of the building where we were and I was blindfolded too much to tell you anything that would help."

Ken nodded in agreement and watched the detective take a sip of coffee, something Ken, in his medical opinion and his unprofessional one as well, was something the detective needed. He looked back to Flack. "The only thing we knew them by was voices."

Mac nodded and rubbed the back of his neck, setting his coffee down on the table behind him. Flack nodded as well, concerned blue eyes focused on both men in front of him. "I think you two should take a break. Mac," he turned his focus to Mac, who looked up at him with a clearly exhausted expression, "you know where to find me if you two need."

Mac nodded. "Thanks Flack."

Flack nodded and he exchanged a few words of thanks with Ken and gave the man a pat on the back before he left to return to the team, leaving Mac and Ken alone.

Both of them sank thankfully into the chairs at the table and took ahold of the coffees they'd been given.

"You got family?" Mac asked, leaning back and looking over at Ken.

The younger man nodded and Mac got a good look at the wedding band on his right hand for the first time. "Chelsea," he said. "She's my wife."

Mac nodded and smiled softly. "You should call her."

Ken smiled. "Already did. She was glad to hear I was ok," he said.

"Good man," Mac murmured.

"Good man yourself, Detective Taylor."

Mac shook his head with a bit of a smile. "It's a hell of a life, isn't it?"

Ken shared his bit of a smile and took it to another level with a partial laugh as he leaned back in his own chair. "Yeah! Non-stop!"

"24/7, 365 days a year," Mac said in agreement.

Ken nodded. "How long you been on the force?"

Now Mac let out a sigh, eyes going a bit wide for a moment as he shrugged. "I stopped counting after ten," he admitted, making Ken and himself chuckle. "Alright, in all honesty… it's probably been… a little over 13 years now."

Ken nodded. "I heard you did time in the Service before this?" he asked.

Mac nodded and took another sip of his coffee, Ken finally taking a sip of his own as well. "Yeah; in the Marines, like my father."

Ken smiled a bit. "Then you said it. Hell of a life."

Mac nodded. "That it is. Wouldn't change a minute of it though."

Ken looked over at him. "Detective…," he started before he looked down, seemingly struggling on how he was going to word this next part.

Mac looked over at him. "You're asking yourself how long you can do this." It was a statement, not a question.

Ken looked over at him, Mac not missing the mixed feelings in the man's brown eyes. "Have you ever done it?"

"Loads of times," Mac said. "And it's not a crime," he added. "Over the years… I've been through some all-time highs and all-time lows, and I've seen my team through their own highs and lows." He paused here and shook his head, biting at his lip lightly. "And you wanna know what?"

Ken looked over at him. "What?"

Mac finally looked at him again. "There isn't a book in the universe that can tell you how to do this job right in everyone's eyes. The day you join, you take the oath and you learn every rule in the book, and everyone expects you to be perfect, even though that isn't humanly possible. And there's also no book that tells you how to cope with this job. That's something we have to find out. Asking ourselves how much longer we can do this is only human. We're no better than anyone else, but we just show up for shift, just like anyone. But we have to find our own way to cope with it all."

Ken nodded, taking it all in. There was a deep truth here. It was amazing what dark times could reveal.

"And I suggest, if it's not too bold of me to do so, that you look to friends and family for some of that help. I've found that to be a hell of a life line," Mac said quietly.

Ken looked up at the detective again. "Thanks, Mac."

Mac raised his gaze to meet Ken's again. "Don't mention it."

Ken smiled a bit. "We ready to find these sons of bitches?"

Now Mac was smiling. "Hell yes we are."


End file.
